The Edge

Synchronising Counterinsurgency Ops with Effective Intelligence

All combat operations need real-time, concrete intelligence, but the counterinsurgency operations’ (COINOPS) margin of error runs thinnest. In their fast, multidimensional context, COINOPS demand more comprehensive intelligence at platoon/company levels than conventional warfare does. This article explores the need for tactical unit leaders fighting insurgencies to have more intelligence assets available in the field in order to offer swift analyses to aid decision making in highly fluid environments.

Mobilisation in the Information Technology Era

Our fundamental ideas about mobilisation are being challenged under the impact of the IT revolution. Impacting all of us, this is an area deserving our close attention.

Autonomous Systems, Auftragstaktik, and Governance.

This paper considers the importance of governance to the ability for the ADF to conduct mission command based operations. This examines the criticality of trust to the success of this operational concept and therefore the role governance will play in establishing trust in autonomous systems.

Augmented Reality and the Future of Learning and Business

Our interaction with the technological world today is changing rapidly. We are no longer limited by screens or even reality as we knew it. David Rapien walks us through the history and differences of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and looks towards the future options of these technologies in life, business and education.

How Biased Minds can be the Key to Unbiased AI Systems

The TED Talk examines the origins of Cognitive Bias, its advantages, drawbacks and challenges with Biased AI. The solution might lie within ourselves.

Science Fiction, JPME and the Australian Defence College

On science fiction, JPME and thinking about future military institutions.

Catalogue of Technology, Knowledge and Concepts by Best-Selling Author Ray Kurzweil

Kurzweil Network is a small format digest — featuring hand-picked, specially curated stories and resources. This website is also home to the permanent collection of writings and commentary by Ray Kurzweil. It follows progress in the science and technology landscape, with topics including biology, nanotech, materials science, electronics, computation, artificial intelligence, robotics, web, pattern recognition, virtual reality, and prosthetics + body augmentation.

Capability Boost: Trials Demonstrate Enhanced ViDAR/ScanEagle Package

This article from Jane’s International Defence Review discusses the use of Visual Detection and Ranging (ViDAR) technology on the ScanEagle unmanned aerial system (UAS) platform to provide detection capabilities comparable to radar using Electrooptical (EO) and Infra Red (IR) sensors.

Future of Logistics Systems in Defence

Logistics! Its not something we usually think about. Not many people understand the concept, or its impact on the progress of society. It is the lifeblood of economy – of any home, organisation, city or country.

AI-Based Virtual Tutors – The Future of Education?

“This blog post is about the UC Berkeley Virtual Tutor project and the speech recognition technologies that were tested as part of that effort. We share best practices for machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques in selecting models and engineering training data for speech and image recognition.

Why Would Prosthetic Arms Need to See or Connect to Cloud AI?

This summary of a lecture by Microsoft’s CTO discusses the integration of sensor technology and cloud based AI in low cost, 3D printed prosthetic arms.

North Korea’s Military Capability

This article is a Backgrounder document produced by the US Council on Foreign Relations outlining North Korea’s military capabilities with a particular focus on unconventional weapons. The article addresses the current state and source of origin of North Korea’s current arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as their delivery platforms.